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extending the neck, sometimes baring the fangs and tensing the body, as in a variation on the bristling response.
    "To be sure," I said, "it is extremely difficult for them to speak Gorean, or another human language." It was difficult for them, of course, given the nature of their oral cavity, throat, tongue, lips and teeth, to produce human phonemes. They can, however, sometimes in a horrifying way, approximate them. I shuddered. I had, once or twice, heard such creatures speaking Gorean. It had been disconcerting to hear human speech, or something resembling human speech, emanating from such a source. I was just as pleased that we had a translator at our disposal.
    "Look," said Samos.
    "I see," I said.
    A small, conical, red light began to glow on the top of the machine.
    The slighter of the two monsters then drew itself up. It began to speak.
    We understood, initially, of course, nothing of what it said. We listened to it, not moving, in the dim, pale-yellowish, flickering light of the unshuttered dark lantern, amidst the dark, dancing shadows in that abandoned tam complex.
    I remember noting the glinting of the golden rings in its ears, and the moistness of saliva about its dark lips and on its fangs.
    "I am Kog," came from the translator. "I am below the rings. With me is Sardak, who is within the rings. I speak on behalf of the Peoples, and the chieftains of the Peoples, those who stand above the rings. I bring you greetings from the Dominants, and from the Conceivers and Carriers. No greetings do I bring you from those unworthy of the rings, from the discounted ones, the unnamed and craven ones. Similarly no greetings do I bring you from our domestic animals, those who are human and otherwise. In short, honor do I do unto you, bringing you greetings from those who are entitled to extend greetings, and bringing you no greetings from those unworthy to give greetings. Thus, then, do I bring you greetings on behalf of the Peoples, on behalf of the ships, and the Steel Worlds. Thus, then, do I bring you greetings on behalf of the cliffs of the thousand tribes." These words, and word groups, came forth from the translator, following intervals between the creature's inputs. They are produced in a flat, mechanical fashion. The intonation contours, as well as meaningful tonal qualities, pitches and stresses, from which one can gather so much in living speech, unfortunately, tend to be absent or only randomly correlated in such a formal, desiccated output. Similarly the translation, it seems, is often imperfect, or, at least, awkward and choppy. Indeed, it takes a few moments before one can begin to follow the productions of such a machine coherently but, once this adjustment is made, there is little difficulty in comprehending the gist of what is being conveyed. In my presentation of the machine's output I have, here and there, taken certain liberties. In particular I have liberalized certain phrasings and smoothed out various grammatical irregularities. On the other hand, given the fact that I am conveying this material in English, at two removes from the original, I think that the above translation and what follows, is not only reasonably adequate in a literal sense, but also conveys something, at least, of the flavor of the original. On the other hand, I do not claim to understand all aspects of the translation. For example, I am unclear on the ring structure and on the significance of the references to tribal cliffs.
    "I think, Samos," I said, "You are expected to respond."
    "I am Samos," said Samos, "and I thank you for your cordial and welcome salutations."
    Fascinated, Samos and I listened to what was, with one exception, a succession of rumbling, throaty utterances emanating from the machine. The machine apparently accepted and registered Gorean phonemes, and then scanned the phonemic input for those phoneme combinations, which expressed Gorean cognitive units, or morphemes. In this way, morphemes, per se, or linguistic